The smell in Greenhouse Three was wet soil, and mint crushed beneath footsteps, and something sulphurous that Cael at first thought was not a plant until Sprout mentioned it.
Sprout loved that particular compost; she told the class upon entry, fond and tolerant, the way that some people announce the weather.
It was a Tuesday afternoon.
Third years were to learn the repotting of Mandrakes – not the screaming adult Mandrakes that called to be cared for in the adjacent greenhouse and could only be repotted by someone wearing industrial earmuffs, but rather a smaller cultivar that Sprout had been working on for three years now.
It responded well to caster magical signature; it was possible to repot this strain with just normal earmuffs.
The strain had not been successfully repotted by a single competent third year twice in the past week, and screamed each time.
Patience was Sprout’s specialty, but Cael knew what he saw, when he looked at his fellow students and the strain, in turn.
Sprout set Neville to repotting the biggest and most irritable sprout.
Cael, sitting at the other end of the bench from Neville, tried not to watch.
He watched very much.
Neville, at the assignment, had blushed a lovely shade of green.
He had then, in plain sight of everyone else, composed himself, putting away his wand because this plant would not appreciate it, and telling himself to breathe.
Neville did not like to hold his wand near the plants; the plants knew when a wand was thinking about them.
Sprout rounded on her class.
The room grew silent.
Unspoken among them was a mutual decision that, since one of them was about to do something special or fail in public, it was best to manage the other’s plants with utmost care.
Neville reached into his Mandrake’s pot.
He did not grab.
He did not jerk, nor did he make the motion that, according to the textbook, one should make when repotting Mandrakes – namely, grabbing its foliage firmly and pulling it up.
He reached in, slow and careful, and cupped his Mandrake in both hands.
From beneath, cupping it from the roots, with his thumbs firmly planted under the soil line.
He lifted it with his elbows spread as wide as he could.
The Mandrake did not scream.
First it seemed puzzled – these Mandrakes had eyebrows, Cael noticed – and then it settled down, relaxing its fists.
It hummed contentedly, as a drowsy bee would do, and happily accepted the new pot.
Neville lowered it, gently patting the soil surrounding it.
Then he stood up.
Silence descended in Greenhouse Three.
Sprout – who, for three years, had been patiently experimenting with Mandrake varieties and signatures – looked at Neville carefully.
“Mr Longbottom,” she said, in a very soft voice, “come here for a minute.” Neville obeyed.
They held a brief discussion that Cael did not hear a word of; Sprout, at its end, placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently, letting go.
Neville came back to his desk with a certain light about him that could perhaps be described only as ‘glowing’.
Internally, of course; Cael saw how the boy beside him, seeing Neville’s glowing self, quietly asked Neville if he might assist with his screaming Mandrake.
Neville agreed and did the same as he had for the first – reaching inside the leaves and soil, lifting it from below.
The boy’s Mandrake screamed once and stopped, happy in its new home.
Soon, Neville helped two more classmates.
At the end of the lesson, the back row repotted their Mandrakes the way Neville did, in spite of the textbook.
Cael waited until after the lesson.
He met Neville in the corridor.
Neville had not only been assigned a task he was competent enough to perform; the boy, in addition, seemed to forget that he was Neville during class time.
Cael ran after him and joined him; Neville smiled sideways and Cael, recognising the unusual smile, wondered briefly where on Earth he got it from.
“I saw,” Cael said.
“It worked.” “It worked beautifully.” “I – Sprout said she hasn’t managed it herself, for that strain.
That she has never once managed that particular strain in any other way – ” Cael nodded.
“I heard the class go quiet.” “The whole class went dead silent.” “And stayed that way for – a while.” Neville started walking again.
Noticing it, Cael observed that he walked faster than usual – in that peculiar, unconscious gait that meant there was a certain feeling coursing through him.
“Maybe it was – ” he ventured, after some thought.
“Maybe it was the gentleness?
Or, maybe the plant recognised me because of the gentleness?
But I have met plants that were unwilling in spite of my being gentle with them.
I don’t think it’s just gentleness alone, though – I think there is something else here.” “Signature compatibility?” “Signature?
In the textbook – ” “If your signature resonates with the strain of Mandrake – ” “Then my gentleness allows the strain to get close enough for reading?” “Exactly.” Neville walked for a while, considering the suggestion.
“That is a research question,” “It is.” “I want to ask Sprout about it.” “Do it.” “Will.” They soon reached the stairs leading into the castle proper.
There, Neville stopped, turning to Cael.
“You watched,” “I watched.” “Why?” Cael thought about it.
“Because I take notes from you.” “From…me.” “I can’t do what you just did, Neville.
And I doubt you ever will learn how to do what I can.
Someday, when I need information from people better at gentle magic than I am, you’ll be my primary source.” Neville stared.
“Mourne,” “What?” “That is the *strangest* compliment I have ever – ” “Accept it.” “I’m taking it.
I’m taking it.
I just – ” He suddenly burst into laughter, which he took all the way upstairs and continued to laugh.
Cael laughed with him halfway, quieter.
When they reached the upper corridor, they stopped, still chuckling.
Hermione rushed towards them in a hurry, books stacked up in her arms higher than her head.
“What is happening,” “Neville repotted a Mandrake without screaming,” “He *what*?” “Tell you on the way to dinner.” And he did, in detail, enthusiastically, while Cael walked alongside them and listened, thinking how the notebook really needed an *Other People’s Magic* section.
And that the first entry in it would be Neville Longbottom, who was, by every measure, far superior in casting gentle magic than Cael was likely to be in his.
That night, Cael wrote the note.
Without underlining it.
Some notes just didn’t require underlining.